...I thought my ports tarball was corrupted so I refetched from the main ftp site but got the same errors.

Only if no snapshots have been released since what has been installed is this ever a good idea. It would be a good idea for you to read Section 15.4.1 of the project's FAQ to understand why this is the case. If you have questions, read it again. And again & again.

ocicat , sorry if I didn't articulate well what happened.
I got the newest current macppc install.iso yesterday and *installed* it on my iBooks then fetched the newest current ports tree .. while compiling a few ports I got the first errors .. then thought maybe the ports tarball was corrupted so I removed everything and got another from the main site ...